Cosmic Maya: "Treasures of Sacred Maya Kings"

The
prime duty of the ancient Mayan kings was to assume the mantle of the
gods, especially the Maize God, and through ecstatic dancing to spark a
yearly rebirth of fertility. For the Maya, a good harvest was crucial,
and the paraphernalia connected with these rituals -- stelae, vessels,
ornaments, murals and more, now on display in "Treasures of the Maya
Kings" at the Metropolitan Museum -- were of the highest significance.

Focusing
on the many symbols of cosmic power and supernatural might, "Treasures
of the Maya Kings" includes items that are spare and elegant, like
small jadeite masks, and others that are more robust, like a limestone
divination figure (150-350 AD) in which a king is in the midst of
transforming himself into a jaguar, his animal spirit companion. What
the pieces all share is a pulsing energy.

At the entry to
the exhibition is a granite stela from Guatemala, 200-50 BC, measuring
more than six feet tall and depicting an early Maya king wearing a bird
mask. The ruler has branches in his headdress that turn him into a
world tree, a bridge between the underworld (symbolized by an abstract
earth monster beneath his feet) and the heavens (symbolized by the
Principal Bird Deity above his head).

The show, which
originated at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, is one of the most
important and compelling exhibitions of the year -- and it looks great
in its incarnation at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Visitors can
savor the art for its esthetic merits alone. But the exhibition also is
an enjoyable way to get up-to-date on what’s been happening in
archeology lately.

First, a little orientation. The Maya
lived in sites scattered across the Yucatan Peninsula from the
Caribbean Sea to the Pacific, in what is present day southern Mexico,
Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador and western Honduras. The Maya had many
small kingdoms, a few regional centers and no one ruler.

The
Formative period, or Preclassic period, of Mesoamerican civilizations
runs from about 2000 BC (with the earliest Maya material appearing
around 1000 BC) to about 100 AD. The Classic Maya begins around 100 AD,
based upon a recent find, rather than 250 AD as previously thought, and
ends at 909 AD.

Mesoamerica has been one of the hottest
areas of archeological study recently, and new discoveries have shaken
up our understanding of the Maya (and much more remains to be learned,
of course). Once thought to be pacific, it turns out that the Maya were
as dependent on blood sacrifice, most of it human, as were other
Mesoamerican peoples.

A few years ago, a large mural was
discovered at San Bartolo in Guatemala, showing a ruler dressed as the
Maize God. This important revelation has pushed back the date of the
Classic Maya from 250 AD to 100 AD.

Visitors to the
exhibition can watch a video that describes this impressive site and
some of the most recent excavations, and that also illustrates ways
that the Maya of today have retained and integrated rituals from the
past into their lives. Several recent art works, such as a wooden
carving of a deer dance performed in Guatemala, attest to this
continuity in a lively fashion.

Nearby, a reproduction of the
San Bartolo find allows viewers to observe some of the earlier Olmec
elements in the tableau. Most but not all archeologists believe that
the Olmec, a people that flourished from roughly 1200 BC to 400 BC in
Mexico's Gulf Coast heartland, was a "mother culture" for Mesoamerica,
evolving many of the beliefs that the Maya would adopt and refine. The
Olmec spoke a different language from the Maya, however, and never
developed writing as the Maya did. At least, that’s the thinking at the
moment.

A good case for Olmec elements in the Maya idea of
kingship is made early in the show. The basic Mesoamerican cosmogram
has four cardinal directions with a world tree rising in the center,
connecting the three worlds of the heavens, earth and the underworld.
The earliest work of art in the show is a basalt Olmec monument of a Lord Raising a World Tree
(1100-900 BC). Found on the top of a volcano in Veracruz, the
now-eroded face of the lord is topped by an Olmec headdress of the
Maize God with a trefoil sprouting maize plant on top.

A distinctly Maya Plate Portraying Enthroned King (Mexico or Guatemala, 250-450 AD) shows a ruler, transformed into the
Maize God, with a different kind of headdress, but one that contains a
cob of maize, trefoil leaves and maize silk. This regal personage sits
on a jaguar pelt in the cross-legged position used by royalty and holds
a sacred offering bundle.

Another Olmec beauty is a Young Lord
(900-400 BC) posing as the world tree. This gracefully elongated human
form, which is carved from serpentine and has reddish cinnabar in its
incisions, is more than two feet tall and holds two celts. Celts were
usually made of jadeite, which like the serpentine, is green and
symbolic of vegetation and fertility. The Maya reused Olmec jadeite
pieces as heirlooms and also made their own.

Flowering
plants, especially water lilies, and water birds like cormorants are
also linked to fertility for the Maya. One Maya painted ceramic from
Guatemala (250-400 AD) has a cormorant picking up a fish from the water
as a handle for the lid. The four feet of the vessel are peccary heads.
These animals were associated with pillars holding up the four cardinal
directions of the universe. Turtles also appear frequently in ceramics.
Their backs are related to the dry crust of the earth from which the
young maize emerges.

While in a trance from blood-letting or
ingesting hallucinogens, Maya kings would divine the future with the
help of mirrors. One rare wooden figure (500-600 AD) with a combination
of Olmec and Maya features seems to have held a mirror once and his
open mouth and half-closed eyes suggest a trance state. An actual
mirror of irregular pieces of hematite with a cave creature on the
reverse was once worn as a pendant.

Feasting in the context
of accession, war victory celebrations, and religious and political
occasions required lots of vessels for food and drink. Many were given
as gifts to participants by Maya kings. Cacao beans, used as a form of
currency, were whipped into a frothy beverage with flavorings, water
and a kind of sap. Kings preferred a cacao drink mixed with spices and
chili peppers. Traces of pinole, a mixture of cacao and maize, were
found in a ceramic deer effigy vessel (Honduras, Copan, 430-435 AD). It
was found with a scoop made of shell in the form of a human hand.

Associations
with fertility followed Maya kings to the grave. A stunning funerary
jadeite mosaic mask with shell and obsidian eyes (Mexico, Campeche,
200-600 AD) was worn by a king in his tomb. The small upward curls of
white shell at his mouth depict his breath -- and his soul escaping.

"Treasures
of the Maya Kings" considers the controversial question of trade and
cross-cultural exchanges between the Maya and the central Mexico
civilization anchored in Teotihuacan. Previously, it was thought that
the Teotihuacan may have dominated the Maya in some areas, because of
their extensive influence on Maya material culture. With new research,
the exchanges appear more balanced and the result of mutually
beneficial trade.

This area is open to conjecture. We do
know that Teotihuacan fell as a major state around 400 AD. Perhaps a
Maya tripod vessel (Mexico, Campeche, 450-550 AD) -- part of dedication
cache to a new building -- that has a Teotihuaca-style human figure and
once held Teotihuacan warrior figurines, may have been a symbolic
"sealing up" of that once-powerful regime. But maybe there’s another
explanation that more research will reveal.

The exhibition is
organized by Virginia M. Fields, curator of Pre-Columbian art at the
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and Dorie Reents-Buder, research
associate at the National Museum of Natural History at the Smithsonian
Institution, and accompanied by a terrific catalogue, Lords of Creation: The Origins of Sacred Maya Kingship.

"Treasures
of the Sacred Maya Kings" was previously on view at the Los Angeles
County Museum of Art and the Dallas Museum of Art.